


Buffy Struggling to be Hero in A Dark World - BTVS essay - 2003

by shadowkat67



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Essays, Meta, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22396333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowkat67/pseuds/shadowkat67
Summary: Who were you're heroes growing up? Firemen? Policemen? Superman? Power Girl? Buffy's was Power Girl.
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers, Riley Finn/Buffy Summers





	Buffy Struggling to be Hero in A Dark World - BTVS essay - 2003

Who were you're heroes growing up? Firemen? Policemen? Superman? Power Girl? Buffy's was Power Girl. In Killed By Death, Season 2, Btvs, we see her flashback to playing Power Girl with her younger cousin, Celia. Her cousin is sick and in the hospital. Buffy comes to visit her and watches her die in a horrible way. Buffy can't save her. If she was Power Girl, she could have.

How often, if we think about it, have we wanted to be the superhero? Wanted to save the day? Kill the bad guy? Bring our friends back to life? Save them? And if we can't be the superhero - gee wouldn't it be nice to sleep with him or her? To be their sidekick?

1\. DREAMING OF BEING THE HERO: It's not all it's cracked up to be.

The episode _Superstar_ in Season 4 explores our desire to be the hero. What we think it would be like. The ultimate "Mary Sue" story. Jonathan, geeky nerd, does a wish spell where he becomes the Superhero and under the conditions of the wish - he has everything he believes a superhero would have: a dream house, beautiful girls, money, success, fame, adoration, and saves the world. It's not real though, as Buffy attempts to point out. The superhero doesn't get any of those things. The superhero - has to fight her battle in the shadows, undercover, with no money, no rewards, and often alone. Think about our own real-world heroes? The Firemen who rush into collapsing buildings, the policeman who face down criminals, the soliders who fight terrorists, the Secret Service men who take bullets for our leaders?paid very little in most cases. And boy do they get a lot of grief. We hold them up to impossible standards.

Like us: Willow, Xander, Jonathan, Cordelia, Dawn - all dream of being the superhero. They all want to be the slayer. They believe it's cool. And they don't completely understand the sacrifices. In the Real ME, Dawn announces in a voiceover narrative what she believes a superhero is, and it's not all that different from Willow, Xander, or our own view.

> "*I* could so save the world if somebody handed me super powers... but I'd think of a cool name and wear a mask to protect my loved ones, which Buffy doesn't even. If this town wasn't so lame everyone would completely know what she does. And then I bet they wouldn't even be that impressed, because like, killing things with wood? Oh, scary vampires, they die from a splinter."

In Anne, Xander, Willow, Cordy and Oz team-up to fight vampires. They even wear customs and call each other codenames like Nighthawk. Meanwhile, Buffy is fighting her way out of a true hell. Fighting depression and despair to do it and saving a large group in the process. Her struggle isn't fun. It doesn't have cool clothes. When she returns to Sunnydale and takes back her duties, the team isn't beside her, helping, she is alone. And they are condemning her for leaving them to fight what they consider her battles. Xander chastises her for not coming back, quitting. Willow for not being there to help her deal with her magic and werewolf boyfriend. Only Giles seems to sense the pain beneath the surface and works to get to the heart of it. (See Dead Man's Party - Faith, Hope & Trick).

Buffy is often alone. It's one of her greatest nightmares - being abandoned to fight her fight alone. Both in Fear Itself and in Restless, we see Buffy hunting her friends. She pushes them aside initially because she can't live with the idea that she caused them to get hurt, but she so desperately needs their help. Their companionship. The hero's job is a lonely one. A point that is actually re-emphasized in Bargaining Part II through most of Season 6. Are the SG alongside Buffy when she is fighting? No. But before she returned? They fought as a team. She comes back. They return comfortably to their normal routines. Giles even tells her she should go alone to fight the singing demon and save Dawn.

Dawn like the rest of us romanticizes what it's like to be the hero. Here's a discussion between Riley and Buffy regarding this desire. Riley understands Dawn, because Riley also wants to be the hero. Buffy would like to be Dawn for a while.

> RILEY: You have super powers ... and college ... a studly yet sensitive boyfriend...  
>  BUFFY: And a pesky life-or-death job that I can't quit or even take a break from.  
>  RILEY: She doesn't get the sacrifices. She's a kid.  
>  BUFFY: And that's what bugs. *She* gets to be a kid, and she acts like it's the biggest burden in the world. Sometimes *I* would like to just curl up in Mom's lap and not worry about the fate of the world. I'd like to be the one who's protected, who's waited on-

If Dawn wants to be the slayer, then Buffy wants to be the little kid. A desire that is echoed a year later in Normal Again where her parents in the asylum world offer to let her curl up in Mommy's lap and be protected. Not surprising. Aren't there times when we all wish we could go back home, rest in the comfy womb of Mom's cooking and hot chocolat? It's interesting that in Fool For Love, when Dawn asks when she'll get to go on patrol - Buffy says never. Buffy is protecting her child self from her thankless life. Later, in Season 6, Dawn slowly appears to get this. Maybe seeing her sister fall off a tower and then get dragged back to life had an effect?

> DAWN: Buffy's never gonna be a lawyer, or a doctor. Anything big.  
>  XANDER: She's a Slayer. She saves the whole world. That's way bigger.  
>  DAWN: But that means she's gonna have like crap jobs her entire life, right? Minimum wage stuff. I mean, I could still grow up to be anything. But for her ... this is it.  
>  XANDER: Okay, but maybe you'll be a lawyer or a doctor, and you can use all your money to support your deadbeat sister.  
>  DAWN: (sarcastic) Oh, that's terrifically better. Thanks.

Xander is still under the delusion that saving the world is reward in of itself. Why would Buffy want more? Xander is like us - we think the same thing. We would love to save the world but realize it's dangerous and are just as happy to be a sidekick. Meanwhile we criticize the people who are risking their lives from the sidelines. Not only do they have to save the world, they better be saints while they do it! No boinking bad vamps. No whining. No mistakes. That's Xander's problem. How can you sleep with Spike? You're the hero? Towards the end of Seeing Red, he realizes what he's done and once again, Buffy plays the hero, pushes him out of the way and takes Warren's bullet in the chest.

The problem with being the hero is not all the times you save the world. It's all the times you failed. That's what haunts you, what lives inside your nightmares, the people you couldn't save. Buffy is terrified she's nothing but just a killer. That what she does in the long run doesn't really matter.

> BUFFY: I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much. But I knew ... what was right. I don't have that any more. I don't understand. I don't know how to live in this world if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away. I don't see the point. I just wish that... (tearfully) I just wish my mom was here. The spirit guide told me ... that death is my gift. Guess that means a Slayer really is just a killer after all. (The GIFT)

In interviews most Firemen state that at night they are kept awake by the images of the people they couldn't save. Cops have the same guilt. It was the guy they accidentally shot on the street or the girl who died before they arrived that sticks with them. Buffy has the same problem. The people who haunt Buffy are Theresa, Jenny, all the people Angel killed, Celia, her mother, and Katrina to just name a few. The people she couldn't save. Just as she probably remembers all those that she killed. She remembers Angel. She remembers Ford. What struck me in Smashed is how relieved Buffy looks when Spike explains he can only hit her no one else. She doesn't want to kill him. She's knows him. And yes, cares for him. It doesn't have to be love. Like Willow states way back in Doomed, "we can't let him kill himself Xander, we know him and it would be ooky." I believe she's somewhat terrified that there will come a day in which she will have to, that he'll lose the chip and she will have to hunt him down and kill him before he kills anyone else. Someone once asked me what I thought of the dream sequence in Dead Things - which shows Buffy sleeping with Spike, then attacking Katrina, then staking a defenseless sleeping Spike, then staking a defenseless Katrina. I think it's simple -fear and guilt. Or what she felt after Angel killed Jenny. It's not the people you save that stay with you - it's all the ones you didn't save. And all the ones you killed.

Buffy's friends and family don't get that. They think its like Spiderman or Superman. Action is you're reward. There's no guilt. The responsibility doesn't way heavily on you. Why not charge for saving lives? Buffy unlike a firefighter, really doesn't have that luxury. But then are firefighters paid that much? Are cops?

2\. SLAYING AS A CAREER CHOICE?

> ANYA: Um ... i-i-if you wanna pay every bill here, and every bill coming, and ... have enough to start a nice college fund for Dawn? (big smile) Start charging.  
>  BUFFY: (irritated) For what?  
>  ANYA: Slaying vampires! (Xander looks embarrassed) Well, you're providing a valuable service to the whole community. I say cash in.  
>  BUFFY: (carefully) Well, that's an idea ... you would have. Any other suggestions?  
>  ANYA: (softly) Well, I mean, it's, it's not *so* crazy.  
>  DAWN: Yes it is! You can't charge innocent people for saving their lives.  
>  ANYA: Spiderman does.  
>  DAWN: Xander?  
>  XANDER: (reluctantly) Action is his reward.

Spiderman does have a rewarding career by the way - he's a newspaper photo-journalist. (Stan Lee was nicer to his superhero than Joss Whedon is.) Poor Buffy is stuck working a double-shift at the Doublemeat, while Peter Parker sell photos of his alter-ego and other newsworthy events. Buffy always knew this was the case. As far back as high school, she knew that her future was sealed. Her friends could pick their careers, hers was already chosen. This is shown in WHAT's MY LINE. (It's paraphrased in places for length).

> Buffy: Uhhh! I shouldn't even be bothering with this. It's all mootville for me. No matter what my aptitude test says, we already know my deal.  
>  Xander: Yup, high risk, sub-minimum wage...  
>  Buffy: Pointy wooden things...  
>  Willow: You're not even a teensy weensy bit curious about what kinda career you could've had? I mean, if you weren't already the Slayer and all.  
>  Buffy: Do the words 'sealed in fate' ring any bells for you, Will? Why go there?  
>  (Willow is hurt by that comment.)  
>  Xander: Y'know, with that kind of attitude you could've had a bright future as an employee at the DMV. (shakes his pencil at her)  
>  Buffy: I'm sorry, it's just... unless Hell freezes over and every vamp in Sunnydale puts in for early retirement, I'd say my future is pretty much a non-issue.

They just don't get it. They think of slaying as a career. Something she can retire from and so do we in a way. I remember a friend of mine saying a few months ago - well, Buff's done her thing, she can be a civilian now, right? Like she was in the military. No, that's Riley. Riley can stop at any time. Buffy can't. Here's a scene from What's My Line Part II, this one is with Kendra, another vampire slayer who has just helped the gang save the day.

> Kendra: You talk about slaying like it's a job. It's not. It's who you are.  
>  Buffy: Did you get that from your handbook?  
>  Kendra: From you.  
>  Buffy: I guess it's something I really can't fight. (smiles) I'm a freak.

But she does try to fight it. She's not a super-hero after all, she's a teenager who wants to date boys and take up cheerleading.

> Giles: You have a sacred birthright, Buffy. You were chosen to destroy vampires, not to... wave pompoms at people. And as the Watcher I forbid it.  
>  Buffy: And you'll be stopping me how?  
>  Giles: Well, I... By appealing to your common sense, if such a creature exists.  
>  Buffy: I will still have time to fight the forces of evil, okay? I just  
>  wanna have a life, I wanna do something normal. Something safe. (WITCH, Season 1, Btvs.)

Then in Never Kill A Boy on The First Date - where Buffy tries to date and only ends up getting everyone including the poor date into danger. Buffy can't even have a normal guy.

> Giles: (looks toward Owen) Seems like a nice lad.  
>  Buffy: Yeah. But he wants to be danger man. You, Xander, Willow, you  
>  guys... you guys know the score, you're careful. Two days in my world  
>  and Owen really *would* get himself killed. Or I'd get him killed.

Gee, being the superhero doesn't look like that much fun. It's not like Superman who gets Lois Lane or Spiderman who marries Mary Jane. (Both do in the comic books.) And this is just the first Season. It's in Season 3 that things get interesting. Buffy is suddenly faced with what she believes are "choices". She thinks, at least momentarily, that she can get off the hook. That she can go to Northwestern and go to college. She does not need to be the slayer forever. Faith can take her place. Her mother also believes this. Unfortunately, Buffy will always be the slayer - it's not a career choice or an occupation. It's who she is. Who she will be until she dies. Willow doesn't get this; Willow believes it is a choice.

There are three major scenes from Choices, Season 3, which discuss this. It's a turning point episode in at least two characters lives: Willow and Buffy's. In it, Buffy learns she can never leave Sunnydale, she will always be the slayer, and her life will always be run by that. Willow on the other hand chooses to remain in Sunnydale as opposed to going to Oxford and chooses to use magic to be part of Buffy's evil fighting team. First scene happens towards the beginning of the episode where the gang is discussing College. Buffy has just realized that she can't hand the slayer duties over to Faith, who has become evil and has just mentioned how her Mom still wants her to go to Northwestern. Her Mom doesn't get the fact that she can't, that she doesn't have a choice. Willow apparently doesn't understand this either.

> Willow: Sounds like your mom's in a state of denial.  
>  Buffy: More like a continent. She just has to realize that I can't go away.  
>  Willow: Well, maybe not now, but soon, maybe. Or maybe I too hail from Denial Land.  
>  Buffy: Faith's turn to the dark side of the Force pretty much put the proverbial kibosh on any away plans for me. UC Sunnydale - at least I got in. You! I mean I can't believe you got into Oxford!

Poor Buffy. But she still has hope. Here's a scene with Wesley and Giles, where she is practically pleading for loophole, a way of moving on, of being something other than just the slayer. How she must envy Willow in this episode.

> Buffy: I want to leave.  
>  Wesley: What? Now?  
>  Buffy: No, not now. After I graduate, you know, college?  
>  Wesley: But, you're a Slayer.  
>  Buffy: Yeah, I'm also a person. You can't just define me by my Slayer-ness. That's ... something-ism.

It's not until the end of the episode, after Buffy has failed to defeat Faith and the Mayor and barely rescued Willow from their clutches, that Buffy realizes she's stuck. She must stay in Sunnydale and follow her calling. Willow on the other hand has gleefully decided to stay in Sunnydale and help Buffy fight evil.

> Buffy: I'm never getting out of here. I kept thinking if I stopped the Mayor or ... but I was kidding myself. I mean, there is always going to be something. I'm a Sunnydale girl, no other choice.  
>  Willow: Must be tough. I mean, here I am, I can do anything I want. I can go to any college in the country, four or five in Europe if I want.  
>  Buffy: Please tell me you're going somewhere with this?  
>  Willow: No. (hands Buffy a letter) I'm not going anywhere.  
>  Buffy: UC Sunnydale?  
>  (Dialogue chopped for length)  
>  Buffy: I can't believe it! Are you serious? Ah, wait, what am I saying? You can't.  
>  Willow: What do you mean, I can't?  
>  Buffy: I won't let you.  
>  Willow: Of the two people here, which is the boss of me?  
>  Buffy: There are better schools.  
>  Willow: Sunnydale's not bad. A-And I can design my own curriculum.  
>  Buffy: Okay, well, there are safer schools. There are safer prisons. I can't let you stay because of me.  
>  Willow: Actually, this isn't about you. Although I'm fond, don't get me wrong, of you. The other night, you know, being captured and all, facing off with Faith. Things just, kind of, got clear. I mean, you've been fighting evil here for three years, and I've helped some, and now we're supposed to decide what we want to do with our lives. And I just realized that that's what I want to do. Fight evil, help people. I mean, I-I think it's worth doing. And I don't think you do it because you have to. It's a good fight, Buffy, and I want in.

Buffy struggles in this scene, partly with her envy of Willow's choices, partly with the fear of losing Willow and most of all the fear of Willow staying and getting killed helping her. Willow is oblivious to this struggle. Willow wants to help Buffy, to be the hero too. "I don't think you do it because you have to," Willow says. It's true, Buffy does choose to use her powers for the good. With great power comes great responsibility. Spiderman also makes this choice. Both could choose to make money at it, they don't. Buffy could choose to go Faith's route. She doesn't. Oh she flirts with it in Bad Girls, but is rudely awakened when Faith kills the Deputy Mayor. And later, we're reminded of Buffy's choices, in Who Are You, when Faith tells Spike, that she could be or have anyone she'd like but doesn't because it would be wrong. She chooses to be the Slayer. So does Faith at the end of Who Are You - going to the church instead of leaving town. Saving lives. It's what they do. But it's hardly a career.

3\. BEING THE HERO/THE SLAYER - Accepting A Life of Sacrifice and Violence

Buffy's friends and possibly the audience forget the sacrifices Buffy has had to make, over and over again. The hero doesn't get to run off with her boyfriend to parts unknown. Or to kill a human on a vengeance spree. As she tells Xander and Dawn in Villains : "Being the slayer doesn't give me a license to kill." She has to be very careful how she uses her powers. Who she kills. And as she grows older the rules get murkier. Part of the problem is, unlike a fireman who can use water to put of a fire, Buffy must rely on violence to act as the Slayer. She must kill with her hands. It is part of her nature. It's part of who she is. The hands. After all we wouldn't want a 'Huggable Vampire Slayer'? But at what cost? Buffy herself wishes it wasn't a part of her, it scares her. She believes it drives people away. After all the men she loves leave her. In IWMTY - she tells Xander she drives them away with her self-involvement and violence. Maybe she does. She can no longer tell. Here are two telling scenes dealing with how Buffy views the slayer and how others do.

The first is from the Replacement, this is the episode where Xander gets split in half. A weak Xander and a strong Xander. We learn that the demon meant to split Buffy in half - creating the pure slayer and the weak normal girl. It is an interesting episode - it states in very clear terms that the slayer is who Buffy is. Just as Xander can't kill off his weaker self and survive. Buffy can't kill off the slayer and survive. It's not a career. It's part of her. But part of her would like to erase it, chop it off.

> BUFFY: Riley, do you wish-  
>  RILEY: No. (some dialogue is chopped for length)  
>  BUFFY: Well, you have been kind of rankly about the whole slayer gig. Instead of having slayer Buffy, you could have Buffy Buffy.  
>  RILEY: Hey. I *have* Buffy Buffy. Being the slayer's part of who you are. You keep thinking I don't get that, but...

But does he get it, really? Riley doesn't understand why Buffy wants to erase that part of herself. He doesn't understand what she's saying. How can he? Here's a scene with Riley's wife, ahhh the irony. Buffy lost Riley even though he claimed to be fine with both parts of her. This is from As You Were:

> SAM: I gotta tell you, Buffy, I'm a little bit intimidated. I mean, patrolling with the real live Slayer, you're like ... Santa Claus, or Buddha, or something.  
>  BUFFY: Fat and jolly?  
>  SAM: Legendary. And it's not just slayer status I'm talking about. It's you.

Gee, poor girl is a legend. She can't have the normal guy. The normal life. But hey, she's  
Santa Clause. And she can't even save those she cares most about. She had to send Angel to hell. And what about Mom? The violence doesn't save Mom. The hitting, the kicks, even magic doesn't. Her slayer role means almost nothing. She can't save her mother. She can't avenge her. Here's the scene from Forever, following her mother's death. It's a dreamlike scene with Angel in the cemetery.

> BUFFY: I can stick wood in vampires ... but Mom was the strong one in real life. She always knew how to make things better ... just what to say.  
>  ANGEL: Yeah ... you'll find your way. I mean, not all at once, but...  
>  BUFFY: (shakes her head) I don't know. I keep thinking about it ... when I found her. If I had just gotten there ten minutes earlier...  
>  ANGEL: You said they told you it wouldn't have made a difference.  
>  BUFFY: They said ... "probably" ... wouldn't have made a difference. The exact thing they said ... was "probably." I haven't told that to anyone.  
>  ANGEL: Doesn't make it your fault. You couldn't have done anything different.  
>  BUFFY: (annoyed sigh) I didn't even start CPR until they told me. I fell apart. That's how good I am at being a grownup.

Ten minutes earlier? What was Buffy doing ten minutes earlier? She was saving Katrina and Warren from Aprilbot. If she had left the Aprilbot to destroy Katrina and Warren, she might have saved her Mom. I've often wondered if this occurs to her, at least subconsciously, in Dead Things. That maybe part of her quilt regarding Katrina is that she wishes she had saved her Mom instead.

Buffy can kill vampires. She can kill demons. But she can't save her mother. She can't save lives. All she can do is kill. Even in The Body - in the morgue - with her mother lying dead on a slab. Dawn has time to study their mother. Buffy has to kill a vampire. This feeling is really brought to the fore in the last episode of Season 5 -The Gift. Someone, can't remember who, made the comment that Buffy was selfish jumping in her sister's place, that Giles was the hero because he put the needs of the world first - that is what a hero does. A hero puts the world first. But heroes are people.

Buffy has been fighting the same battles forever. It never stops. The others, Xander, Willow, Anya, Giles - they get to bow, they can leave. Giles proves this in Season 6 when he returns to England, not once but twice and both at inopportune times. Willow said as much in "Choices". Even Xander has said it. But Buffy? She can't leave. And she can't always save those she loves. Her mom is gone. So is Angel, who she had to send to hell. And Riley, who left her because she couldn't give him what he needed, her slayer duties took too much out of her. And in Season 5, she's being asked to kill her sister - for what? The world? And what, Buffy wonders, has the world given her lately? What does she get in return? Is she just a killer? Someone created to kill whatever adversary the forces of darkness send at the forces of good? As she says way back in Season 1, "Been there, done that. Moving On." Is it any wonder, that now, in Season 6, she wants to quit?

> BUFFY: (still looking down) I was happy. Wherever I ... was ... I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time ... didn't mean anything ... nothing had form ... but I was still me, you know? (glances at him, then away) And I was warm ... and I was loved ... and I was finished. Complete. (Afterlife, Season 6)

And she does try to escape to that again in Normal Again. She resents Willow and Xander for pulling her out of it. For demanding she continue her chores as slayer while they get to live normal lives. She even tries to kill them. But the hero is part of her soul. She can't divorce it. She can't ignore it. Killing her friends won't erase it. It doesn't work that way. We can't change who we are deep inside. At the end of Normal Again - Buffy comes to her senses and saves her friends from a demon she'd unchained in the basement. She stands solidly and asks for the antidote. Chooses the life of the slayer over the life of the normal girl in the asylum. Finally, Buffy makes a solid choice, accepts the slayer.

A solid choice that is echoed throughout Villains, Seeing Red, Two-To-Go and Grave, where Buffy not only makes the decision not to kill the evil humans, but tries to save them even though they shot her and her close friend Tara. She also tries to save her best friend, Willow from herself. Even after Willow threatens to destroy her and her sister. And finally in Grave, decides to show Dawn, her sister the world.

It's tough to be the hero, particularly when you didn't initially choose this path. And yes, even heroes fall down on the job, it's human nature and Buffy is very human. But what we can and should admire about Buffy Anne Summers is she continues to go down this path, she doesn't give up; she struggles step by step even when she's faced with insurmountable odds. And she does it with compassion. Very few of us would have the capacity to do what Buffy does. How tempting it must have been to kill Warren, Jonathan and Andrew or to stake Spike. The fact that she doesn't and doesn't allow anyone else to is somewhat amazing. Could any of us have done the same? Have to admit I wanted Warren dead. How tempting to quit her job at DMP and join up with Riley. How tempting to continue her affair with Spike. Continue using him. No one but Riley knew and Spike would have let her, even if it was destroying him as much as it was hurting her. How tempting to stay in the asylum world. But Buffy doesn't do these things. Nor does she stay in the Grave. I found her struggle inspiring this year. We all fall down. We all make mistakes. The hardest thing to do is get up again, crawl out of our grave, face the new morning and start again. Buffy did this and my heart leapt for her. As much as I adore the other characters, Buffy remains my hero.


End file.
